


Three Times Is the Charm

by navaan



Category: Smallville, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Casual Sex, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Friendship/Love, Growing Up, M/M, Red Kryptonite, Romance, Rough Sex, Sexual Content, Strong Language, legacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-09 15:44:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7807705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They meet as boys, then they meet as troubled young men, but the world will know their names later and not for the trouble they caused or the footsteps they followed, but for the example they set themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Times Is the Charm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Etnoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/gifts).



For other children birthdays are always a big affair. It the same for Sam as it is for anyone else. But in his family, Jim’s birthday is just more complicated than Sam's. Jim has known this all his life and he’s long been old enough to understand the reason why his mother’s smile turns sadder than on any other day when she looks at him on his birthday. He knows she’s going to say it before the words come out of her mouth and thinks: “Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.”

“You look more like your father every day, kiddo.” She means well and she closes the space between them and hugs him and holds him and ruffles his hair, then lets him go and walks to the table to set it as if nothing out of the ordinary happened. He hates it. Everything inside of him hates it with every fiber of his being.

He knows all about his dad. He just never knew _him_. He's not even twelve yet and he’s already sick of everyone looking at him and seeing a dead man. His father is a hero Jim already understands he can never live up to.

Uncle Frank doesn’t even look his way when he starts stuffing things in his backpack and storms out. He doesn’t really care where he’s going. With the unwavering determination of a twelve year old, he only knows he doesn’t want to be home on his birthday. He wants to be somewhere where nobody knows him and nobody knows it’s his birthday today.

The anger propels him forward. 

It’s the best companion for him right now.

By the time he has passed the Martin farm, he’s feeling calmer. Not calm enough to just turn around and return home. He’s twelve now after all. He doesn’t make decisions on a whim. Adults don’t really get it, but at twelve Jim is not a kid anymore. 

Dust flies up as he stomps towards the very edge of Riverside. He’d deliberately chosen this road, because it will take him toward the space shipyard and he likes looking at the ships there, even though he never tells anyone about it. It’s just another thing that people will tell him he has in common with his dead father.

He walks to the next town and reprograms his PAD so he can use public transport from there without anyone knowing about it. His mother says he has his talent for programming from her. Uncle Frank says he has his talent for trouble from the Kirk side of the family. He doesn’t care where he got it. At the moment the only thing that counts is that he can use it to get away. Going south is as good as going anywhere else. So he takes the first line out.

On the ride he falls asleep and by the time he wakes up he is in Kansas. He gets off here, having nothing but his little backpack. Nobody gives him a second glance. 

“Filthy Kryptonian,” a boy’s voice hisses behind him and he sees a group of children watching a boy his age walk down the street alone. He’s too far away to have heard, but he looks up anyway. There’s nothing alien about him. His mom has taken him to San Francisco so often, that Jim knows all about what it means to meet people from other planets. He also knows that not all humanoid aliens look all that different from humans. But there is nothing remarkably alien about this boy and he has never heard of Krypton. He's immediately interested.

The boy looks at the children with narrowed eyes then he catches Jim staring. It’s all the invitation he needs to walk over. He hasn’t had any company for hours and he prefers company to lonely contemplation. 

“Hi,” he says. “I’m Jim. I just got off here.”

The boy looks at him as if he’s a ghost. “I’m Clark,” he says quietly and then politely holds out his hand. “What do you want in Smallville of all places?”

“No idea,” he admitted and grinned. “I just wanted to get away.”

Clark gives him a narrow-eyed look. 

Jim thinks it might just be the start of a new adventure.

They end up playing ball on a lawn close to the Kent farm. Clark is clumsy, but he gets the hang of it fast. His mum always said that Jim is altogether too good at making friends or enemies and Clark it seems doesn’t have many of the first and already too many of the later category. “Pete is off visiting his aunt. He’s my best friend and he loves basketball,” he explains.

“Never played it,” Jim says and scrunches up his nose. It’s the kind of thing fathers are supposed to teach their sons, he thinks.

“So what’s with them calling you Kryptonian?”

He knows it’s not the right thing to ask, but he wants to know. Clark is nice enough. Why would anyone want to insult him? 

“I was born on Krypton. Came here in a meteor shower,” Clark says. “Everyone around here knows that. Whatever goes wrong here, people think it’s because of the meteors. Because of me.”

“Is it?” he asks. 

Clark shrugs.

“So… Where are your parents?”

“Ma and Pa are at the farm,” he says and points. But the boy isn’t stupid either. He knows that this is not exactly the answer to the question he had been asked. So he amends with a sniff: “They took me in. My real parents… are gone. Krypton is gone.”

Just like George Kirk is now gone from their house. Like his father is dead and gone. James can emphasize.

“My parents sent me here.”

He has all these questions immediately, wants to know what makes Clark different. His eyes must be shining with excitement. “I met a Vulcan once in San Francisco,” he babbles. “My mother is with Starfleet.” He doesn’t mention his father. “You are totally human.”

Clark laughs. It’s a nice sound. Then he grabs the ball, looks at Jim as if it’s a challenge and throws. Hard. 

He can’t even follow it with how quickly it’s just gone. Thrown impossibly far. 

“Wow,” he says slowly. “Just wow!” He jumps up and down. “That is so amazing.”

They spend the rest of the day hiding in the Kent family barn and Clark shows him what he can do with his strength. He bends and unbends all kinds of heavy tools that are no longer needed. 

“You are not afraid of me?”

Jim shrugs. He is afraid sometimes, but not often enough, Sam says. When he looks at Clark he doesn’t see something dangerous. He sees something amazing, something interesting. “You are something,” Jim says and smiles.

Clark thinks he’s something too, when he explains he has snuck away from home and only gotten so far because he has hacked his way through all the identification. “I could never do that,” he whispers in complete awe. 

“That’s because you’re a good kid and I’m not. I’m a bit of rouge.” He repeats what one of his teachers has said about him. 

“You’re nice, Jim.”

They fall asleep in the hay together and Clark’s mother Martha finds them later, bribes Jim with delicious cookies to tell her where he’s from. Although his mother picks him up the next morning with a stern face and a slightly sad expression, this might have been his best birthday ever.

“He’s Kryptonian,” he explains to his mother. “They are awesome.”

“Were,” she says. “He’s the last, as far as we know.”

He’s twelve and thinks he’ll go back to Smallville, see Clark again. They will be great friends and he can share all his birthdays with the kid who knows that legacies are a complicated thing. Despite his mother’s job with Starfleet he has never had an alien friend before.

But that summer his mother finally thinks it’s time to do something about their living situation, because he nearly loses his life in a car accident of his own design. Sam has left the house to live with their grandfather and Jim thinks now he will do the same. Winona thinks it’s time to give him something more of an experience. He’s going to spend some time with his aunt Sarah and her husband, who are building a life on Tarsus IV.

It sounds okay, although he isn’t looking forward to more farm work.

He’s going to see space anyway.

It’s not that he forgets about Clark… But when he comes back from Tarsus IV, alive and mostly well, he’s not in the mood to rekindle friendships. There’s too much he has to work through on his own.

* * *

He’s twenty one when he takes a trip to Metropolis. He’s here to get drunk mostly. And because a pretty thing dragged him along and he had nowhere else to go. Nobody needs to tell him that his life is spinning wildly out of control. It’s there he catches a man dancing like he’s listening to his own music. It’s so beautiful he can’t stop staring. The girl at his side whispers: “Want to ask him back to our room?”

Apparently, Jim isn’t the only one transfixed by the display. 

He swallows and takes a mouthful of his drink. It’s purple and vile, but exactly the kind of thing he wants and needs right now to make himself look away. The image of him and that man and the girl in the same bed is now edged into his mind. Impulse control is not his strongest suit. Doesn’t have to be. Life is what he wants. His life has been overshadowed by too many memories of people long dead. He’s done living up to other people. He’s done wasting his time trying to use his mind for something worthwhile, because he’s learned already that nobody will ever see him as anything but the son of a dead hero. 

But whatever he does he yearns for something to hold on to.

A warm body does the trick most of the time.

He puts the glass back down and looks at his hands. The girl smiles and leaves, making a beeline for the dancer and he follows her with his eyes. But the dancer is gone. He blinks, turns around, leaning his back against the bar, looks on confused as she gets lost in the crowd, obviously also looking for the cute guy who had just been dancing.

“Hi,” a voice says close to him and he nearly whirls to the side.

It’s the sensual guy from the dance floor. And he’s sitting right there beside him, looking at him as if he’s thinking the kind of things that Jim had been thinking about him less than a second ago. This whole trip to Metropolis suddenly seems worthwhile. 

“Hi,” he says and takes a moment to take in all that’s on display. Strong arms, tight black shirt and leather pants not leaving too much to the imagination, damn blue eyes that are not unlike his own in their single minded intensity. 

For a second he could have sworn the irises were rimmed with red, but that must be the light in the club playing tricks on him. 

The stranger leans forward. “Let’s not beat around the bush. Your girlfriend suggested the two of you take me home. I’m only interested in half of the deal.”

That is so direct that Jim chuckles, amused. He has nothing against directness. It’s his usual M.O. “Okay,” he says and tries for his most dazzling smile. “She’s not actually my girlfriend anyway.”

“Good,” the guy says and that’s as much warning as Jim gets, before an incredible strong hand grabs the front of his own leather jacket and pulls him forward and right into one of the most demanding kisses he ever received in his life. And he hasn’t been idle. He’s been _kissed_. 

He’s ready to melt right into it, give as good as he gets, but then his breath is literally taken away and the room turns or something, his stomach drops right into his pants like the feeling of beaming and when he opens his eyes again, his mouth is still being _ravaged_ , but it’s darker, the music isn’t blaring in his ears and the air is much cooler. They’re outside. In an alley and he’s pressed against a wall hard, with a leg shoved between his owns and strong hands trying to get him out of his jacket. 

Fuck.

He pulls away to breath. “Fuck,” he says.

“Yes,” the would-be-lover breathes into his hair. “Right now.”

“How did you… How did you do that?”

The body against his own freezes. “Are you afraid, Jim, afraid of what I can do?”

God, the voice is sexy and perhaps just a little dangerous with that strong, strong hand pressed to the side of his throat. But it’s the use of his name that has him intrigued. “Are you fucking joking?” he asks and chuckles maybe a little, although he thinks it’s barely audible, because he has not yet caught his breath. “I have _no fucking idea_ what you can do to me, but I’m here to find out.”

He pulls the other man’s mouth back to his and initiates the next kiss and, god, he loves it. Finally, someone who matches his passion, who doesn’t treat him like a convenient lover, like a stupid hick, like the breakable son of a dead war hero. Here is someone who will leave bruises and still make him feel like he’s something desirable.

He can’t even fucking explain it, and it’s not of any relevance, because he’s having some of the most exciting sex he’s ever had right here in any alley way in Metropolis and it’s fast and hard and so different from the worship he’d been thinking off bestowing upon the enigmatic dancer from the club. And, god, the guy is strong. He lifts him right of his feet and holds him against the wall at the perfect angle to make him come with some desperate, hard thrusts and he’s not sure he wants the other man to let go, because he doubts he can keep himself standing after this. He’s panting, he’s feeling light headed. He wants to be kissed again.

“That,” he pants, “was amazing. Wow. Really, wow. And I don’t say that lightly.”

“I hope not,” his nameless lover says. “Hell, I hope not.”

“So, you’ve picked up my name from somewhere. We had sex. But I don’t even know your name yet, stranger.”

The man looks him over, watches as Jim straightens his clothes. He’s already zipped up and presentable. Jim feels like he’s never going to be presentable again. “Kal,” he says slowly. 

“Kal,” he repeats. 

Kal moves again, presses him back against the wall and says: “I want you.”

“I’m not complaining.”

This time he’s aware of the hand that holds his head as he again loses all the air in his lungs and isn’t beamed, but _moved_ at incredible speed. They end up stumbling into a little apartment, fall onto a bed, side by side and he’s suddenly staring up at a ceiling with wide eyes. “Wow,” he repeats, because for once it isn’t the sex - or not _only_ the sex - that blows his mind. “Did you just run here? Run us here? What the hell are you?”

Kal smiles. “My name is Kal-El,” he says softly. He smiles and it’s clearly a challenge. “And I wasn’t born on Earth. Are you afraid?”

“Afraid? Of what? Having my mind blown by sex?”

The smile turns different. Not softer. Less challenging perhaps. He’s said the right thing. There’s going to be more sex. 

God, he’s so not complaining.

Kal-El, who or whatever he is, is quick and dangerously strong. He rips Jim’s jeans clean off him. There is a rebellious fire in him that speaks to Jim like nothing. “I knew you would be good, so good,” the man pants as he screws Jim right into the mattress, gripping the cushions so hard that the pillowcases rip under his fingers. It shouldn’t be possible, to be turned on any more than he already is. He has had strong lovers before, but never like this. There is an edge of danger to it, but he recognizes some of the hunger, some of the rougeish quality, some of the tension and riotousness, because it’s the perfect mirror for everything he’s been feeling for years. It’s consuming and uncontrollable and he’s so glad that someone else is there, someone who manages to reach him in his shell of rebellion and give back as good as he gets, to touch and understand. 

He shivers, feels the pressing of another building orgasm as Kal moves inside of him like he knows exactly how to play Jim, like Jim is an expensive instrument that needs to be handled with care, but also touched with some surety to play just the right tune. This sex is like the dancing and like fighting and like the rush of racing and he’s letting go for the first time in so long… really lets go...

“James T. Kirk,” he whispers against his ear. “You’re still quite something. So, so amazing. I just knew...”

And it’s then in the middle of reaching his own climax for the second time that night, panting and writhing and so, so close to begging that he suddenly sees the blue, blue eyes above his and understands. “Clark?” he whispers.

“Kal,” the man corrects. “Kal-El of Krypton.”

They come together shouting.

It’s bliss. Dangerous, dangerous bliss.

They lie together on the bed; he naked, the other man still half dressed in his tight button down shirt. Clark - Kal-El - has grown up to be perfect. Jim traces a finger along his throat and marvels at the perfect skin there. Kal is wearing a thin chain with a peculiar looking red crystal hanging from it, but that token doesn’t really interest Jim. He wants to touch more of this perfect body and Kal catches his hand for a moment, bruisingly hard. Then he allows the buttons of his shirt to be opened.

There are scars.

Jim knows about scars. Most of his have always been invisible or have been treated so well that only a tricorder can detect them now. He wonders why nobody treated those. His eyes widen slightly when he realizes they form a shape. “What…?”

“El,” Kal says. “The mark of the house of El.”

He sits up, all traces of want are gone in a sudden rush of indignant shock. “Who the hell does something like this?”

“It’s a reminder that I have a destiny,” Kal-El says and his voice is hard, not in a sexy way. “It’s a reminder that I have a legacy to uphold.”

“Fuck legacy,” Jim shouts, because, goddamn, yes, fuck legacy; he knows all about that. “Does it hurt? It looks like it hurts.”

Kal-El suddenly looks more dangerous than ever. Jim wonders what has happened to the gentle boy from Kansas that made him so… He can’t think of the word. The harshness is not something he had seen in the boy. “It burns. All the time. Because I’m not fulfilling my destiny.”

“Ha.” Jim huffs. Fuck destiny, too. He knows he’s a fuck up. But this… this is so wrong. He hugs Kal-El, for both the man he is now and the boy he once was, because nobody ever had done that same thing for him. He half expects to be pushed away, but arms come up around him and they lie like that. Jim talks about Tarsus for the first time in years. Kal listens. He talks about Jor-El, the father he never really knew and his plans for Kal’s future. 

Jim drifts off. 

When he wakes, Kal is standing on the balcony. The chain of the necklace with the red piece of crystal is in his hand. Jim thinks it’s a stupid time to think of modesty and slips on his boxers and nothing else and walks out behind him. “Hey,” he says. 

“Hey,” Kal-El says and there is a hard edge to it. Then he swallows and with one quick, inhumanly strong move of the arm throws the necklace up to the sky. Jim follows the movement and realizes that this is like that ball back in their childhood, but so much stronger. The little speck vanishes and Kal-El looks after it. His shoulders slump a bit.

“What was that all about?”

Kal sighs heavily, like suddenly he’s feeling the effect of a hangover. “It’s complicated.”

“What isn’t?”

“I should… I think I should go home.”

There. There it is. The gentleness to the eyes that Clark had posses and Kal had been missing. 

Jim doesn’t know what happened just now. 

Something has shifted.

“I have no idea what to do with myself.”

That is a feeling he understand. He tries to smile. “You can do so many incredible things, Kal. You’ll be amazing at whatever you want to do.”

“Clark,” he finally corrects. “I’m Clark Kent.”

“I kind of already knew that.” He has a lopsided grin just for occasions like this.

“You know, you’ll be amazing too. You _are_ amazing.” 

“Don’t feed my ego,” he says, but he knows he can be. He has all the pieces, all the talents. He just doesn’t want to walk the path. He’s still not sure what it is he’s missing.

An example maybe.

“Tell you what. You be amazing and I’m going to meet you wherever you end up,” he suggests. He hopes for another round in the sheets.

What he gets is heartfelt kiss. “Deal,” Clark says. “Meet you there. Until then, you know where I’ll be.”

He’s gone the next moment and Jim is left behind, blinking at nothing. 

Huh.

* * *

His life is changed in a bar back in Iowa.

Forever.

It’s a man who for the first time looks at him and gives him a real bar to meet, to prove himself against, who makes the difference.

It’s another man in a cave on an icy planet who shows him that the something he’s always been missing is a destiny torn away from him by force and deceit. There is something he should be doing with his life, something more even. A history that has been changed but should unfold.

“Interesting,” the older Spock whispers in his mind. There is a flicker of that moment he shared with Clark. Something warm and fuzzy rises to the surface. Spock again says: “Interesting.” And although the feelings inside the link don’t change at all, he sounds like he’s glad for Jim.

* * *

The Enterprise and her crew are his family. His name is no longer the name inherited by George Kirk who heroically died to protect others. It’s a name spoken with reference throughout the worlds that stand with the Federation or against it.

It’s a cruel twist of fate that now he will die crashing with said ship and crew into the planet he so longed to protect.

“We still have no power, Scotty,” he barks into the comms. 

“Gravitational pull has…”

“We are falling, Scotty, we need power to be back up _now_.”

“We will be too late,” Spock says so calmly. They’ve evacuated more than half of the crew already, because of hull damages made during the unprovoked attack on the planet, but now they are in deeper trouble.

“Sir!” Checkov cries. “We are not falling anymore.”

“Well done, Scotty,” he says, leaving the channel open. 

“I did’na do anything, sir,” the Scottish engineer answers sounding surprised. “Engines are down.”

“How the…?”

Then he looks up and the image he sees projected in front of him on the view screen takes his breath away. 

“Captain Kirk, we’re being pushed back into space.”

A red cape, blue suit. He recognizes the S that isn’t an S but an El. 

Uhura is the one who asks: “Is that… him?”

“Superman,” Jim whispers, but it’s another name he thinks. “Good to see you.” He knows Clark can hear him even now, although he can't see the fond smile.

The man with the cape makes a two fingered salute and then waves. It's silly and endearing.

* * *

There is a press conference at Starfleet Command. There are so many questions about Klingon attacks and their five year mission, but most of all about Superman saving a space ship. Jim smiles as he says: “We don’t know where he is, but in my name and the name of my crew I thank him. He saved us and many lives on Earth.”

There is a reporter there in the crowd who gets up next. He nods for him to ask his question and grins.

“Clark Kent,” he says loud and clear. “Daily Planet, Metropolis.”

They grin at each other, because nobody will ever understand that this is the meeting they’ve both been waiting for. For the first time since the start of the 5 year mission his heart sings with joy at the prospect of shore leave.

For once Bones won’t have to force him off the ship.

He and Clark have a lot of catching up to do. And this time, he thinks, things might work out for good.


End file.
